Fans of Akira, the cult Japanese animation about a teenage boy with terrible destructive powers, may want to look away now. No sooner has the reported threat of Zac Efron taking the main role in the forthcoming Hollywood live action remake been allayed, than a fresh emo threat raises its hunky head: Robert Pattinson.

Deadline reports that the Twilight star is being approached by studio execs to take the main role of Tetsuo, who in the 1988 film begins to exhibit sinister abilities. As well as Pattinson, The Social Network's Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy have also been sent scripts. Efron, who was last year named as a frontrunner for the role, now seems to be out of the picture.

In line to play the other main lead role of Kaneda, a biker and gang leader, are Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix. The Hollywood remake will take the original six-book graphic novel as its source, playing the action out over two films and relocating it to "New Manhattan" rather than the original's New Tokyo, a city built on an artificial island in Tokyo bay following the destruction of the original Japanese capital in an explosion 30 years previously. Akira is the name of a young boy whose powers led to the disaster, one which Kaneda slowly comes to believe his childhood friend Tetsuo may be about to repeat.

The latest casting rumours have emerged following a rewrite of the project's screenplay by Steve Kloves which Deadline reports has executives at Warner Bros and director Albert Hughes (From Hell) excited.

Akira was originally a 2,182-page manga epic which was adapted by its writer Katsuhiro Otomo into a two-hour film (Otomo also directed). Despite its complex, densely packed storyline, it has gained huge popularity over time since its release and helped to fuel the growth of anime's popularity outside of Japan.